Topic & Research Question

How do units of housing supply completed in the last 23 years compare across regions of England?

Given the current housing crisis and shortage in the UK, I became interested in how different regions of England specifically are performing with their supply of homes.

Data

Import

#readODS package needed to read the Net Additional Dwellings .ods dataset
if(!require(readODS)) install.packages("readODS")
library(readODS)
##readxl package needed to read the Regional Population .xlsx dataset
if(!require(readxl)) install.packages("readxl")
library(readxl)

#Library required for data wrangling
if(!require(tidyverse)) install.packages("tidyverse")
library(tidyr)
library(dplyr)

##ggplot2 allows for plotting with ggplot
if(!require(ggplot2)) install.packages("ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)
##plotly allows interactivity  from ggplot plots. I like the use of plot zooming and custom hover text which is why plotly was used
if(!require(plotly)) install.packages("plotly")
library(plotly)

#Adding data to a data frame
#Ensure data names match what I've named them below and are stored in a "data" file if you are downloading from sources yourself
data_dwell <- read_ods("data/raw_netadditionaldwellings.ods", sheet = 5)
data_pop <- read_xlsx("data/raw_population.xlsx", sheet = 11) 

#See new imported data sets are what we need
head(data_dwell)
## # A tibble: 6 × 12
##   Table 118  Annual net …¹ ...2  ...3  ...4  ...5  ...6  ...7  ...8  ...9  ...10
##   <chr>                    <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
## 1 This worksheet contains… <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## 2 Back to contents         <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## 3 Components of net housi… Year  Nort… Nort… York… East… West… East… Lond… Sout…
## 4 Net additions [note 1]   2000… 2890  10720 10800 14830 13790 17780 15710 25680
## 5 Net additions [note 1]   2001… 4489  13543 12752 16188 13052 19154 19688 26219
## 6 Net additions [note 1]   2002… 5343  18120 13452 16938 13742 21554 21648 27269
## # ℹ abbreviated name:
## #   ¹​`Table 118  Annual net additional dwellings and components, England and the regions, 2000-01 to 2023-24, unrounded`
## # ℹ 2 more variables: ...11 <chr>, ...12 <chr>
head(data_pop)
## # A tibble: 6 × 16
##   MYE4: Population estim…¹ ...2  ...3  ...4  ...5  ...6  ...7  ...8  ...9  ...10
##   <chr>                    <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
## 1 This worksheet contains… <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## 2 To turn off freeze pane… <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## 3 Please choose from the … <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## 4 This met my needs, plea… <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## 5 I need something slight… <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## 6 This is not what I need… <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>  <NA> 
## # ℹ abbreviated name:
## #   ¹​`MYE4: Population estimates: Summary for England and Wales, mid-2011 to mid-2023`
## # ℹ 6 more variables: ...11 <chr>, ...12 <chr>, ...13 <chr>, ...14 <chr>,
## #   ...15 <chr>, ...16 <chr>
#Will be merging these data sets so we get a figure of the number of new housing units relative to that region's population for a given year, by 1000 people to allow regional comparisons
#Data needs to match by Year and Region, therefore need to ensure relevant wrangling is completed...

Wrangle: Net Additional Dwellings data

Plot: Net Additional Dwellings data

Wrangle: Population data

Plot: Population

Wrangle: Merging datasets

Final Plot for Assessment

Conclusions

Limitations & Future ideas

Although my project offers an interesting insight into housing supply differences across English regions, it of course overlooks the contextual and political factors involved in housing supply. Economic conditions (e.g., unemployment, income levels), government policies (e.g., housing subsidies, planning permissions/ regulations) and details regarding types of housing or population density are not considered.

My initial idea for this project was to use data on affordable units of housing available regionally and find proportions of net housing that are affordable, to see where in England there are the most affordable options for housing. This fell short when I realised the affordable housing data is only available as a gross figure (i.e. not taking into account any losses of affordable housing), therefore any data presented would be misleading. This would be a really interesting future idea given the net data is published. There is some “Official Statistics in Development” only on affordable housing for rent, if interested (see references).

References

All data was extracted from the Office for National Statistics and from gov.uk.

Net Additional Dwellings data: Table 118: annual net additional dwellings and components, England and the regions (ODS, 54KB) -
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-net-supply-of-housing#live-tables (Updated: 28 November 2024)

Involvement from: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (2018 to 2021), Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Population estimates data: Mid-2023: 2023 local authority boundaries edition of this dataset edition of this dataset (xlsx, 813.1KB) -
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/estimatesofthepopulationforenglandandwales (Released: 15 July 2024)

Unused data: Links for anyone interested in affordable data sets mentioned:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65c0b5dec43191000d1a451f/Net_Affordable_Housing_for_Rent.ods/preview